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LONG BLOG

Due to popular (and fictional) demand, I have once again been called away from my luxury two bedroom apartment in de_dust2 to further guide the uninitiated in the ways of the online shooter enthusiast. In part one, we discussed how you can preen your feathers and enact the mating call of the average Counter-Strike enthusiast to help you blend in with your new adopted family of cursing adolescents. Exclusive to Destructoid, I can now reveal an excerpt from my upcoming memoirs, detailing my integration into a fledgling clan.

See part one of my travel log to find out how to get on with fellow players like one of these!

The one they called Spooky laughed as I crouched over the fallen counter terrorist, miming the traditional and homo-erotic dance of victory practiced by online gamers for many years. His thick north England accented voice bellowed with laughter as I turned and shot his pal Barber in the face, as Barber let out another sigh of disbelief at his all too sudden failure. “HAX!” Barber responded from beyond the grave (as is tradition).The smallest and youngest of this group, Jake, who happened to be a fellow terrorist, cried out in elation as he felled Freedom, whom I suspect to be the mate of Spooky. She quietly sighed before calling Jake a bastard, which only spurred Jake’s near climactic glee beyond safe boundaries.

My success in integrating myself within this small, possibly vulnerable pack was down to two things alone; one, being good at the game. Two, the “well pervy” voice I am forced to put on, as I still live at home and am forced to speak quietly when playing late at night, a voice which comes across more Christopher Walken than soft spoken Jude Law. The latter served to amuse this quartet of players, whilst the former confirmed by belonging with them.
The next day, a server was rented, a clan web page formed, a badge concocted, and a name was born, a name which to this day, I neither care for nor understand. For we are “Hunters of Gunmen”, which I’m told by Freedom is good because the initials will be H.O.G, which is also the name of some sort of real life military group. As an extra surprise, despite having no knowledge of what was to happen, I had also been made an admin of this server. I was ecstatic. Had it really worked? Was I truly integrated to the point where the primitive inhabitants of this world were happy to grant me power over the very existence of their mortal plane? Did they really trust me with the power to release the Sword of Damoclese upon any foolish enough to abuse the customs and traditions of their people, along with all the Team Fortress 2 noises which can be played by admins for no good reason? To warp time and space if the map we were playing on displeased me? It seemed, finally, after two months in the jungle, the office and the dusty Middle-Eastern village, the stabilisers were off, and I was hurtling through the park on a shiny red metaphorical BMX.

This is pretty much my new job

At the time of writing, I have only wielded the power to play TF2 noises at the inhabitants of my new realm. This has received a mixed reaction. Aside from my new God-like powers, a much greater benefit has been realised; security. I know now that there is always a server where I am in control, where I can guide the locals who visit our territory/server away from their homophobic and racist slurs by killing or banning them. A place where I can no longer be banned from for simply killing the guy who owns the server more than he would like. A place where everybody knows my name, whether they like it or not. And a place where the fools I have duped into being Steam friends regularly procrastinate, ready for the plucking. Online gaming to the new adventurer is a dark, dangerous, hormonal and sweaty place on the surface. Penetrate the perspiring outer shell of this loud and outspoken species of online FPS enthusiasts, and you can find inner harmony, a second home, and power over life and death.

LOOK WHO CAME:

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Sorry for the extra step!

About Astonishingly BAdassone of us since 12:09 PM on 11.08.2012

Hello Destructoid,

You have traversed the depths of the C-Blogs and found your way here; a shabby cabin at the piss-end of nowehere, littered with discarded wine bottles and cigarette ends. You peer through the darkness to see five faint outlines in front of you. One sits composed and dignified in a desk chair by a badly damaged table, reading a textbook on human anatomy. He pays no attention to your arrival, and continues to read through unknown means in the darkness. To your left, in the corner, a shockingly handsome man in a plaid shirt sits behind a desk, smiles at you warmly, and refuses to break eye contact. To your right, on a stool, a surly woman in a nurses outfit cradles a cigarette in her outstrecthed claw, glaring at you with scorn that even the dark cannot disguise. The fourth figure sits on the floor, smiling dimly and fiddling with the laces of his white trainers and the dangly bits of his brown hoodie whilst puzzling over a particularly tricky section in his colouring book.
Finally, at the back of the room, you finally spot a familiar face, framed by scruffy hair and uneven sideburns. The man you recognise as jebussaves88 stands before you, nursing a half empty glass of Rioja, and yet this is not the man you once knew...

Welcome to the blog of the Astonishingly Badass clan, a group who met in the distant past of 2009 in the Versus mode of Left 4 Dead 2. Whilst our numbers were once strong, we five still stand united with two objectives; save humanity from not having enough of us in their lives, and to make silly gaming related videos. We feel Destructoid would be a good home for our upcoming video series "The Astonishingly Badass Show", as well as any future blogging content we may conjure up.